The Russian military intends to expand deployment of its most sophisticated non-nuclear cruise missiles for attacks at land and sea under a sweeping naval modernization, according to an analysis by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.

Plans to install the Russian navy’s new KALIBR-class missiles even on vessels such as corvettes, or small warships, “is profoundly changing its ability to deter, threaten or destroy adversary targets,” the U.S. agency, known as ONI, said in a report posted on its website. “With the use of the land attack missile, all platforms have a significant ability to hold distant fixed ground targets at risk using conventional warheads.”

The KALIBR class is “a more capable Russian domestic version” of weapons it has marketed for export over the past decade, according to the report. The new weapons include sea-launched, land-attack models that were fired into Syria from a submerged Russian submarine, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news service.

[...] While America’s strategy depends on having a powerful Navy, it’s more difficult to say whether that Navy should have 275 ships, 300 ships or some other number. McGrath points out that “two consecutive independent National Defense Panels” said the right number is significantly more than 300. The first panel said 346; the second said somewhere between 323 and 346.

Getting there will be difficult, however, because of deep cuts to the defense budget as a result of sequestration. As a result of $1 trillion in cuts that are now underway, it isn’t just the Navy that is struggling. The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps chiefs also told Congress that they cannot execute the national strategy with the resources they have. In simplest terms, they said, “Americans’ lives are being put at risk.”

In February, Obama requested a $35 billion increase in annual defense spending. That will only reverse a small portion of the cuts imposed during his tenure. In the House and Senate, Republican majorities will soon unveil their own budget proposals, which will indicate whether they understand the severity of the problems facing our troops. Congressional Republicans have consistently attacked Obama for his half-hearted response to threats from the Islamic State group, Russia and other adversaries. Now that their hands are on the purse strings, it is time to give this commander in chief (and his successor) the tools they need to defend our country.

ROME – Italy has expelled a Moroccan man after investigations revealed he wanted to commit acts of terrorism and planned to travel to Syria, the interior minister said on Tuesday.

The 40-year-old, who had briefly acted as a Muslim cleric while living near the northern town of Padua, left Italy on a plane bound for Casablanca, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano (pictured) said in a statement.

“I decided to expel him because … he showed a will to commit terrorist acts and the intention to go to conflict zones in Syria,” Alfano said.

Italy, which joined many other countries in raising its security alert after militants killed 130 people in Paris in November, has now expelled 65 suspected jihadists, Alfano said.

The Muslim community where the expelled man lived had distanced itself from him because of his fundamentalist and anti-western views, Alfano added.

An Islamic State terror attack in Europe is being planned by a dying woman intent on disguising herself as a Syrian refugee, security sources have revealed.

Anti-terror police are desperately searching for the 21-year-old, identified only as Oygul M, after fears she will attack Russia after entering the country among the chaotic influx of Middle East migrants flooding Europe.

According to the Daily Express the woman, who has brain cancer, is believed to be based in Georgia with a 29-year-old male terror suspect, known as Bulat A. She could take advantage of Europe’s migrant crisis by entering Russian territory disguised as a Syrian refugee, officers said.

The largest mobilization in recent times by Danish police are currently being prepared - for a massive control of all border crossings throughout Denmark.

According to information obtained by Ekstra Bladet, up to every four employee of the police's operational force of about 10,000 men will be involved in the new border control, which allegedly will be put into effect on January 4.

An anonymous police officer said to Ekstra Bladet that he has been informed that more than half of the operational strength - 6,000 men will be in play.

Since before Christmas, police have been on so-called seven days notice, which means that there is a week of preparation time before the demand for a more effective control is set into effect.

The reason is the Swedish government's decision to introduce identity checks at the borders from 4 January.

The Swedish inspection requirement is according to the ferry company DSB costing a million Danish kroner ($146,500) a day. The ferry company HH-Ferries operating between Elsinore-Helsingborg, must pay about SEK 100,000 ($12,000) a day to the security company G4S.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Thirty-five asylum-seekers have asked to be relocated from a refugee housing facility in southern Sweden because they believe it's haunted by ghosts, officials said Wednesday.

The asylum-seekers were spooked by flickering lights and noise in the plumbing system at the facility in Grannaforsa, a small village in Smaland province, said Magnus Petersson, a local manager at the Swedish Migration Agency.

Petersson said 35 of the 58 people living in the shelter came to the agency's office in the nearby town of Alvesta on Tuesday, demanding to be relocated. They reluctantly returned to the shelter at the end of the day after being told there were no ghosts — and no alternative housing available — Petersson said.

"I know that in their faith there is a different view on spirituality," he said. "We were responsive to them but somewhere you have to use your common sense and believe in science."

Sweden has received a record 150,000 asylum-seekers this year, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The large influx has left the Swedish Migration Agency scrambling to find housing, including in remote villages surrounded by thick forest and roaming wildlife.

Hamid Alojaili, a Syrian resident of the Grannaforsa facility, told local newspaper Smalandsposten "we are sure" that the building is haunted.

"Doors are getting reopened by themselves," he said in English in a video clip posted on the paper's website. "And there is no one outside."

Many get the feeling they are not alone even in the bathroom, he said, adding that the residents would rather stay in tents than in Grannaforsa "because it's too dangerous to be there."

Stefan Johansson, a co-owner of the facility, said it was built in the 19th century and was long used as a home for disabled people. During World War II, it housed German deserters.

Johansson said there are natural explanations for all the things that frighten the asylum-seekers.

"It's an old house and the doors maybe are a bit crooked," he said. "Sometimes there are cracking noises in the pipes."

The flickering lights were caused by glitches in electrical switches, he said.

"We have explained all this to them. How much of it they took in I don't know," Johansson said.

Although the issue of the immigration to Sweden has become the most important, where more and more voters are critical of the volumes, the Green Party's spokesperson and Swedish Vice Prime Minister, Åsa Romson, opens for that Sweden in the future should receive even more people than the current numbers.

To the newspaper Dagens Industri, Romson says that a number of 50,000 to 100,000 immigrants per year to Sweden is way too low. That is the number current migration minister Morgan Johansson assesses that Sweden can handle. But Deputy PM Åsa Romson believes that level of immigration it is far too low.

- I do not agree with it. There should possibly be an assessment of our reception system, and we must have a system that can handle significantly more than that, says Romson to her ministerial colleague Johansson's view on the matter.

Åsa Romson has previously distinguished herself as a politician who wants to see a very generous immigration policy, a line also used by the red-green government until late autumn of 2015 - when the immigration to Sweden broke records on a weekly basis with over 10 000 asylum seekers per week, equivalent to an annual rate of 500,000 people. That forced the government pull the emergency brake.

Since then, the government has introduced border controls but also introduced a carrier liability that forces companies such as shipping companies to verify the identity of travelers before they are taken to Sweden.

The new policy has been strongly criticized by the grass root of the Green Party, and just before Christmas, a poll showed that Åsa Romson has the lowest confidence of all party leaders, according to Dagens Industri.

Gary Nathaniel Moore, 37, arrested early Wednesday in connection with a Christmas Day fire at a Houston mosque, was a devout attendee of the mosque for 5 years, coming 5 times per day to pray 7 days a week.

(Houston Chronicle) A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed that the man was arrested early Wednesday, sometime after midnight, and appeared in court 7 a.m. Wednesday.

According to a charging instrument released by the Harris County District Clerk, Moore told investigators at the scene that he has attended the mosque for five years, coming five times per day to pray seven days per week.

Moore told investigators he had been at the mosque earlier on Dec. 25 to pray, and had left at about 2 p.m. to go home. Moore told investigators he was the last person to leave the mosque and saw no smoke or other signs of fire when he left. He had returned to the scene after hearing about the fire from a friend.

Though the suspect said he was a regular at the mosque, MJ Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, which operates the mosque, said he was unfamiliar with Moore. "We are just looking into it ourselves," he said Wednesday morning after learning of the arrest.

"We are really very surprised and saddened by this whole thing," said Khan.

Using surveillance video from multiple businesses nearby, investigators were able to identify Moore, according to records. A search warrant of his home was conducted, in which investigators recovered a backpack and clothing that seemingly matched that which was seen in surveillance footage, as well as one half of a two-pack of charcoal lighter fluid bottles that seemed to match another lighter fluid bottle found inside the mosque.

Bond for Moore has been set at $100,000.

It took about 80 firefighters to put out the two-alarm blaze at the storefront mosque in Savoy Plaza, near Wilcrest Drive and West Bellfort.

Leftists in U.S. politics and academia have taught Muslims contempt for America.

(WaTi) Muslims around the world know that America is a Judeo-Christian country and its Constitution has been based on those canons. They also know that this Constitution respects all faiths, does not force Christianity on the citizens and allows freedom of worship.

It is also a fact that like all others, the Muslims who have immigrated to the United States came knowing in advance that this country was founded by Europeans with Western values, traditions and culture. Yet they stood in long lines, filled out long forms and waited, some for years, to get the green light to come to America. They all took the oath of allegiance to become a citizen and all they expected was freedom and opportunity for a better life.

Many of these Muslims, including Iranians, are secular and fled to America because the Islamic rulers mistreated them and took away their freedoms, equality and human dignity. They came to live in democracy free from Shariah law in a country where religion is separated from the state.

Others came because they were condemned to live in poverty, ignorance and hopelessness. The corrupt Islamic homeland did not provide them with economic security, jobs and a better future for their children. They came to have the opportunity to work and feel proud as a sovereign human being, providing their children a future to grow and prosper. They are grateful for the opportunity that they would have never had in the Islamic homeland.

However, as time goes on, they become indoctrinated by Americans to hate America, they are told that this is not the great country they had envisioned. They listen to National Public Radio and MSNBC and are told by their new compatriots, how unjust this country is. At work they learn from the ideologues that the 1 percent is in charge of this country. They are taught that white people are racists and discriminate against every non-white, and they are now living under the unjust privileged white.

Their children who have no knowledge of what their parents fled, go to American schools where they learn that Christianity is the white man’s intolerant religion that they are fighting. They are told that Christians are against Muslims and have massacred Muslims and stolen their lands and wealth for centuries, but that very Islamic despotism that their fathers fled is a religion they respect in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism.

Under the progressive atmosphere of academia at the universities, young American Muslims are taught anti-Americanism by professors. They are taught that America is a racist society that discriminates against them because of their religion and that the Founding Fathers of this country were a group of white, privileged slaveowners. They are led to buy into the rhetoric that Americans are war-mongers who have mistreated Muslims, and who support Israel and American oil companies while becoming billionaires as a result of looting the wealth of Muslim nations. The young and uninformed Muslims will naturally want to join the “progressive” crowd.

The daily news from the Muslim world is unsettling, and it leaves them no choice but to go along and become a part of the anti-American movement of the intellectual elites, gravitating toward animus and retribution.

It is American intelligentsia, the mainstream media and leftist politicians who teach young Muslim Americans to hate America, not ISIS, al-Shabab, al Qaeda or the Khomeiniist regime in Iran.Even the jihadists learn anti-American propaganda from Americans themselves and repeat what they hear from American universities, the media and political attacks by Democratic candidates.In spite of what President Obama and Hillary Clinton say, the tools of Muslim tyrants and jihadi terrorists are not Gitmo or proposed policies of the opposition. Their real tool is what the left repeatedly puts out for the sake of getting votes.The young Muslims learn to hate America from the words of the president of the United States and candidate Clinton, not from ISIS.The Islamic regime in Iran hands out big paychecks to American professors to deliver lectures during their summer vacations in universities in Iran, where they invariably become advocates for Islam and a reference point in their anti-American propaganda.The repeated story that Gitmo and every word against Islamic terrorism is a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorism is made up by Democrats as a political talking point to glean Muslim votes. The jihadists hear, learn and are only too happy to use the same talking points to their advantage.With this cacophony of self-loathing in the United States, there is no need for ISIS to lift a finger to recruit the young and uninformed Muslims.

WASHINGTON (NYT) — Even as the Obama administration scrambles to confront the Islamic State and resurgent Taliban, an old enemy seems to be reappearing in Afghanistan: Qaeda training camps are sprouting up there, forcing the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies to assess whether they could again become a breeding ground for attacks on the United States.

Most of the handful of camps are not as big as those that Osama bin Laden built before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But had they re-emerged several years ago, they would have rocketed to the top of potential threats presented to President Obama in his daily intelligence briefing. Now, they are just one of many — and perhaps, American officials say, not even the most urgent on the Pentagon’s list in Afghanistan.

The scope of Al Qaeda’s deadly resilience in Afghanistan appears to have caught American and Afghan officials by surprise. Until this fall, American officials had largely focused on targeting the last remaining senior Qaeda leaders hiding along Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous border with Pakistan.

At least in public, the administration has said little about the new challenge or its strategy for confronting the threat from Al Qaeda, even as it rushes to help the Afghan government confront what has been viewed as the more imminent threat, the surge in violent attacks from the Taliban, the Haqqani network and a new offshoot of the Islamic State. Former administration officials have been more outspoken — especially those who were on the front lines of the original battle to destroy Al Qaeda’s central leadership.

“I do worry about the rebirth of AQ in Afghanistan because of what their target list will be — us,” said Michael Morell, the deputy director of the C.I.A. until two years ago, whose book, “The Great War of Our Time,” recounts the efforts of the Bush and Obama administrations to destroy the Qaeda leadership.

“It is why we need to worry about the resurgence of the Taliban,” Mr. Morell said, “because, just like before, the Taliban will give Al Qaeda a safe haven.”

(The Sun) Mohammed Rehman and his secret wife Sana Ahmed Khan have been found guilty of planning an ISIS inspired attack on London’s Westfield shopping centre on the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings.

The would be jihadi’s plot came undone after Rehman – who dubbed himself the silent bomber – sent out a tweet asking for tips on which was the best target.

Tweeting out a picture of Jihadi John, the fundamentalist appealed to his followers asking: “Westfield shopping centre or London Underground? Any advice would be appreciated greatly.”

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Europe's border guard agency Frontex says it is deploying 293 officers and 15 vessels to the Greek islands in response to a request from Athens for assistance in managing an "unprecedented migratory pressure."

Frontex said Tuesday the deployment began the day before under a new operation called Poseidon Rapid Intervention. Greece has requested more assistance in surveying its borders that are part of the EU's external borders, the Warsaw-based Frontex said.

Thousands of asylum-seekers are arriving by boat on the Greek islands from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Frontex officers, interpreters and document experts will assist in identifying and fingerprinting the arriving migrants.

Frontex said it aims to scale up the mission in Greece over time to 400 officers with vessels, vehicles and other technical equipment.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Norway's center-right government on Tuesday proposed tightening the country's asylum rules to avoid what the immigration minister described as "violent consequences" for the country's welfare system.

The measures, which would need parliamentary approval, include making it more difficult for refugees to bring family members to Norway and raising the requirements for permanent residence permits.

The move comes after more than 30,000 asylum-seekers sought shelter this year in the wealthy country of 5.1 million people. Immigration Minister Sylvie Listhaug, of the right-wing Progress Party, noted that's one of the highest numbers in Europe in relation to population size.

She said 10,000 to 100,000 people are expected to apply for asylum in Norway in 2016.

"If we are anywhere near the latter number it could have violent consequences for our welfare society," Listhaug was quoted as saying by Norwegian news agency NTB.

Refugees are entitled to many of the same welfare benefits as Norwegians.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian authorities announced Tuesday they have arrested two men and seized military-type uniforms and Islamic State group propaganda in connection with a suspected plot to unleash holiday season attacks against police, soldiers and celebrated locations in Brussels.

The attacks under preparation "were the same style as those perpetrated in Paris Nov. 13," in which 130 people were killed and hundreds injured by suicide bombers and gunmen equipped with Kalashnikov-style assault rifles, according to an internal document from Belgian state security services cited by RTBF French-language television. Those lethal actions were claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

The two suspects were arrested following searches Sunday and Monday in the Brussels area, the eastern Liege region and Flemish Brabant, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. It did not disclose their names or further information about them.

During the searches, no weapons or explosives were found, but military-type training uniforms, IS propaganda material and computer equipment were impounded and are being examined, the prosecutor's office said.

It said the case was unrelated to the brazen and bloody extremist actions in Paris a month and a half ago but that the investigation, which is still ongoing, has revealed a "threat of serious attacks that would target several emblematic places in Brussels and be committed during the end-of-year holidays."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when "owners" of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured females.

The ruling or fatwa has the force of law and appears to go beyond the Islamic State's previous known utterances on slavery, a leading Islamic State scholar said. It sheds new light on how the group is trying to reinterpret centuries-old teachings to justify the rape of women in the swaths of Syria and Iraq it controls.

The fatwa was among a huge trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May. Reuters has reviewed the document, which has not been previously published, but couldn't independently confirm its authenticity.

Among the fatwa's injunctions are bans on a father and son having sex with the same female slave; and the owner of a mother and daughter having sex with both. Joint owners of a female captive are similarly enjoined from intercourse because she is viewed as "part of a joint ownership."

The United Nations and human rights groups have accused the Islamic State of the systematic abduction and rape of thousands of women and girls as young as 12, especially members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq. Many have been given to fighters as a reward or sold as sex slaves.

Far from trying to conceal the practice, Islamic State has boasted about it and established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery. Reuters reported on the existence of the department on Monday.

In an April report, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 female escapees who recounted how Islamic State fighters separated young women and girls from men and boys and older women. They were moved "in an organized and methodical fashion to various places in Iraq and Syria." They were then sold or given as gifts and repeatedly raped or subjected to sexual violence.

DOS AND DON'TS

Fatwa No. 64, dated Jan. 29, 2015, and issued by Islamic State's Committee of Research and Fatwas, appears to codify sexual relations between IS fighters and their female captives for the first time, going further than a pamphlet issued by the group in 2014 on how to treat slaves.

The fatwa starts with a question: "Some of the brothers have committed violations in the matter of the treatment of the female slaves. These violations are not permitted by Sharia law because these rules have not been dealt with in ages. Are there any warnings pertaining to this matter?"

It then lists 15 injunctions, which in some instances go into explicit detail. For example:

"If the owner of a female captive, who has a daughter suitable for intercourse, has sexual relations with the latter, he is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother and she is permanently off limits to him. Should he have intercourse with her mother then he is not permitted to have intercourse with her daughter and she is to be off limits to him."

Islamic State's rape of female captives has been well documented, but a leading IS expert at Princeton University, Cole Bunzel, who has reviewed many of the group's writings, said the fatwa went beyond what has previously been published by the militants on how to treat female slaves.

"It reveals the actual concerns of IS slave owners," he said in an email.

Still, he cautioned that not "everything dealt with in the fatwa is indicative of a relevant violation. It doesn't mean father and son were necessarily sharing a girl. They're at least being 'warned' not to. But I bet some of these violations were being committed."

The fatwa also instructs owners of female slaves to "show compassion toward her, be kind to her, not humiliate her, and not assign her work she is unable to perform." An owner should also not sell her to an individual whom he knows will mistreat her.

Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of Islamic Theology at Al-Azhar University, a 1,000-year-old Egyptian center for Islamic learning, said Islamic State "has nothing to do with Islam" and was deliberately misreading centuries-old verses and sayings that were originally designed to end, rather than encourage, slavery.

"Islam preaches freedom to slaves, not slavery. Slavery was the status quo when Islam came around," he said. "Judaism, Christianity, Greek, Roman, and Persian civilizations all practiced it and took the females of their enemies as sex slaves. So Islam found this abhorrent practice and worked to gradually remove it.”

In September 2014 more than 120 Islamic scholars from around the world issued an open letter to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi refuting the group's religious arguments to justify many of its actions. The scholars noted that the "reintroduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam."

Monday, December 28, 2015

Ramzan Ali Tabason lost his 9-year-old daughter Shukria when she
was kidnapped and beheaded by Taliban fighters in November.
(Pam Constable /TWP)

KABUL (WaPo) — The last time Ramzan Ali saw his 9-year-old daughter alive was the day he put her in a van, along with her aunt and five other people from their Afghan village. They were headed for the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the little girl, Shukria, was going to spend time with her ailing grandmother.

The next time Ali saw his daughter, in mid-November, she was lying in a coffin with her severed head stitched jaggedly back onto her neck. She and the other passengers, all ethnic Hazaras from Ghazni province, had been abducted on the highway by Taliban insurgents, held captive for 27 days and then beheaded.

“She was the smartest girl in her class,” Ali, a farmer who walks with crutches, recalled in an interview last week. After spending years in Pakistan as war refugees, he and his family had returned home in 2012 to work their land again. “When I hurt my leg, Shukria told me she was going to become a doctor and fix it,” he said.

Rome (AFP) - Around 4,000 migrants and refugees were saved from waters between Italy and North Africa over the course of the Christmas weekend, with further rescue operations expected in the final days of an "exceptional" year, officials said Monday.

The Italian coastguard said it had coordinated the rescue of more than 3,000 people over the holiday period while Norwegian ship Siem Pilot deposited 931 rescued people, including 26 minors, at Palermo, Sicily on Monday morning.

Three suspected people traffickers, two Gambians and a Somalian, were arrested when the Norwegian boat, part of a European search-and-rescue mission, docked, according to Italian media.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen called on Monday for debate on possible changes to the Geneva Convention on the rights of refugees if Europe cannot soon curb an uncontrolled influx of asylum seekers.

Denmark was the first country to sign the 1951 U.N. convention - the legal foundation for the protection of refugees worldwide - but, like other European Union member states faced with an unprecedented inflow of asylum seekers this year, has set about tightening border checks and some immigration rules.

"There comes a time when you have to discuss (...) whether to adjust the rules of the game," Rasmussen said in an interview with Danish broadcaster TV 2.

Asked whether he meant international conventions that regulate refugee rights, he said "yes" and added: "It's clear that at some point, if Europe does not get this under control, then you have to start a discussion."

Rasmussen cited two aspects of refugee rights dealt with by the convention that he said should be reviewed, one of them touching on Turkey from where the majority of Syrian and other migrants fleeing war and deprivation have moved on to Europe.

"If you stay in Turkey for 2-3 years, (a country that itself) is free from war, should you then be allowed to head on to Europe and seek asylum? Today the rules say yes, but we need to discuss that," Rasmussen said.

The other point he mentioned was the right of refugees to have their families follow them to the new country.

Denmark's parliament has adopted a bill to enable family reunifications only after three years, for example, but has been unable to apply this to all refugees because of the Geneva Convention.

Around 18,500 migrants have applied for asylum in Denmark in 2015. The government's placement of adverts in Lebanese newspapers in September to discourage migrants from coming appeared to have little effect.

More than 1 million refugees and migrants came to the EU this year and almost 3,700 have died or gone missing in perilous journeys that reaped huge profit for smugglers, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

(NYP) The cleric acting as spokesman for the San Bernardino mosque where terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook worshipped claims he barely knew Farook and didn’t know his terrorist wife at all. But phone records and other evidence uncovered by federal investigators cast suspicion on his story.

The FBI has questioned the cleric, Roshan Zamir Abbassi, about his phone communications with Farook — including a flurry of at least 38 messages over a two-week span in June, coinciding with the deadly Muslim terrorist attack on two military sites in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Abbassi, a Pakistani, insists he had nothing to do with the shooting at a San Bernardino County government building five miles from the mosque. While he confirms the text messages with Farook, he claims they were merely discussing food donations for his Dar-al-Uloom al-Islamiya of America mosque.

Abbassi maintained at a press conference that he didn’t know Farook any better than he knew the reporters in the room. But members of the mosque say Farook was a fixture there. He had been coming to pray and study at least three times a week for two years. In fact, he memorized the Koran at there, something you cannot do without learning Arabic, a subject Abbassi teaches.

His other assertion that he never even saw Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, also strains credulity. Malik joined her husband in shooting 35 of his government co-workers at a Christmas party.

“No one knows anything about his wife,” assistant imam Mahmood Nadvi agreed. “She never came to prayer.

But longtime mosque member Gasser Shehata, who claimed to have prayed “shoulder to shoulder” with Farook, said Dar-al-Uloom prepared a chicken-and-rice dinner to celebrate the couple’s wedding last year. Reportedly, hundreds of congregants attended the walima reception, including the mosque leadership.

Asked if Farook was radicalized at the mosque, Abbassi snapped, “Never.” He said the mosque teaches only peace, insisting no one has even an “extremist idea.”

“In Islam,” he said, “we are against innocent killing.”

Abbassi recently posted a message on Facebook condemning the United States and other Western nations for their Mideast policies, arguing they are equally guilty of violence to achieve political and religious goals. His mosque’s Web page features a video claiming that the San Bernardino shooting was carried out by the US government in a “false flag conspiracy,” and that Farook and Malik were “patsies” assassinated “by government-sponsored perpetrators.”

Another person of interest is Abbassi’s brother, Mohammad Sabir Abbassi, a Muslim activist who serves as a trustee and English teacher at the San Diego mosque once headed by the late al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

FBI Agent Joel Anderson said in court filings that Farook indicated he was a big fan of Awlaki and listened to a series of sermons about jihad and martyrdom called “The Hereafter.”

In his filing, Anderson says Farook studied the ultra-orthodox Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat. US officials say the cult, with 50,000 members, is rife with jihadists, and jihadi groomers are recruiting at mosques in at least 10 states.

“We have significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States,” said Assistant FBI Director Michael Heimbach, “and we have found that al Qaeda used them for recruiting.”

Homeland Security Department veteran Philip Haney said Dar-al-Uloom was among the mosques his agency was investigating as part of a probe of the Tablighi movement.

“Individuals who were already in the case in 2012 went to that mosque,” Haney claimed in a Fox News interview.

He said he ID’d some 300 jihadists and terrorists tied to the movement in the United States before the Obama regime pulled the plug on the investigation in 2012. Known Tablighi alumni include the Lackwanna Six, the American Taliban John Walker Lindh, shoe bomber Richard Reid, dirty bomber José Padilla and would-be Brooklyn Bridge bomber Iyman Faris.

US special forces in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk captured alive one of the leaders of the group "Islamic State" (IS ), Abu Omar al- Shishani. It was reported by Sunday, December 27, by the TASS news agency quoting EIN. Special Forces also detained two IS warlords and killed seven militants in a special operation. Three extremists were taken to the city of Sulaimaniya in northeastern Iraq.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Kurdish groups meeting in southeastern Turkey called for self-rule on Sunday amid heavy fighting in the region as the army pushed ahead with a security operation in which it says more than 200 Kurdish militants have been killed.

The Democratic People's Congress (DTK), made up of Kurdish non-governmental organizations, made the call after a two-day meeting in Diyarbakir.

"The rightful resistance mounted by our people against the policies that degrade the Kurdish problem, is essentially a demand and struggle for local self-governance and local democracy," said the final resolution of the meeting, titled "declaration of political resolution regarding self-rule".

The declaration called for the formation of autonomous regions including several neighboring provinces of Diyarbakir to take account of cultural, economic and geographic affinities.

The call could escalate tensions between Kurds and the Turkish government as the government adamantly opposes a separate Kurdish state.

President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech late on Saturday that Turkey would never allow the formation of another state within its borders.

"Now they are talking about separating our land in this country. With God's permission, we will never allow a surgery on the unity of our country," he said.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Vienna police said on Saturday a "friendly" intelligence service had warned European capitals of the possibility of a shooting or bomb attack before New Year, prompting police across the continent to increase security measures.

"Several possible names of potential attackers were mentioned, which were checked, and the investigation based on (these checks) has so far yielded no concrete results," Vienna police said in a statement, some six weeks after 130 people were killed in Islamist bombing and shooting attacks in Paris.

"In the days before Christmas a warning was sent out by a friendly (intelligence) service to numerous European capitals, saying that it could come to an attack involving explosives or a shooting between Christmas and the New Year in crowded spaces."

The police asked Austrians for their understanding of the need for more security controls.

Extra steps include surveillance in crowded spaces, "especially at events and traffic hubs" as well as intensive identity checks and higher alertness for objects which could carry explosives such as bags or "bicycle frames", it said.

Vienna police were not immediately available for further comment.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry said it did not comment on particular situations for operational reasons.

"Germany is still in the crosshairs of Jihadist terrorism," he said, adding the country had reviewed and adapted its security measures, where necessary, following the Paris attacks.

The number one European supplier of ISIS fighters is not France, the U.K. or Germany … it’s Bosnia.

John Schindler, a former counter intelligence officer for the National Security Agency, describes on his 20 Committee blog how Bosnia-Herzegovina, a small Balkan country in Eastern Europe, has supplied more fighters to ISIS per capita than any other European country.

According to Schindler, “the country [Bosnia-Herzegovina], as I recently explained about Canada, is considered something of a ‘safehouse’ for radicals, a permissive environment for their clandestine activities, and terrorism committed there is considered off-message by both ISIS and Al-Qa’ida.”

“Western intelligence places the number of Bosniaks (i.e. Bosnian Muslims) who have gone abroad to fight with ISIS around 300,” Schindler, currently a national security contributor at Observer.com, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Though 300 may not seem like much, it should be noted that the entire country’s population numbers around 3.8 million, of which approximately 1.82 million are Muslim.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is located just to east of Italy across the Adriatic sea. The population of the Balkan country is highly diverse and includes a 48 percent plurality of Bosniak Muslims, 32 percent Serbs and around 15 percent Croats. The Ottoman Empire brought Islam to the region centuries ago and held the area until it was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian empire. The country existed as part of Yugoslavia throughout most of the 20th century until it proclaimed independence in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Following shortly, the Bosnian war erupted with the Muslim Bosniaks and Croats pitted against the Bosnian Serbs. The Bosnian Serbs were supported by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and would eventually conduct ethnic cleansing of the Bosniaks and Croats.

When asked why Bosnia has become a hotbed of ISIS support, Schindler says: “Salafi radicals built a strong infrastructure in Bosnia beginning in the early 1990’s, thanks to both Saudi and Iranian money and assistance, and now there is a robust, self-sustaining radical infrastructure in the country.” Salafism is a radical fundamentalist Sunni Muslim movement that has influenced several jihadists. Given the violent history of ethnic tension in the region, it comes as no surprise that Bosnia would be a ripe target for ISIS recruitment.

“[ISIS support] is aided by Bosnia’s incredibly serious socio-economic problems — youth unemployment exceeds 50% and the cumbersome political system, put in place by the West 20 years ago, is impervious to reform,” explains Schindler.

Scindler’s point on Bosnia comes as the country today engaged in what has been called ‘Operation CUT’, a series of raids against suspected ISIS supporters, particularly around the town of Sarajevo.

Berlin (AFP) - Germany has recruited 8,500 people to teach child refugees German, as the country expects the number of new arrivals to soar past the million mark in 2015, Die Welt daily reported Sunday.

With some 196,000 children fleeing war and poverty entering the German school system this year, 8,264 "special classes" have been created to help the new arrivals catch up with their peers, Die Welt said, citing a survey carried out in 16 German federal states.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Prague (AFP) - Czech President Milos Zeman, known for his anti-migrant comments, on Saturday called the current wave of refugees to Europe "an organised invasion", and that young men from Syria and Iraq should instead "take up arms" against the Islamic State (IS) group.

"I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees," said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic released Saturday.

He went on to say that compassion was "possible" for refugees who are old or sick and for children, but not for young men who in his view should be back home fighting against jihadists.

"A large majority of the illegal migrants are young men in good health, and single. I wonder why these men are not taking up arms to go fight for the freedom of their countries against the Islamic State," said Zeman, who was elected Czech president in early 2013.

Hundreds of migrants stormed Spain’s border with Morocco at Ceuta early on Christmas Day. Two drowned and over 100 were intercepted, but many more reportedly reached Spanish territory.

The storming of the Spanish border in the north of Ceuta took place in the early hours of Friday morning, with the migrants attempting either to swim to Spanish-claimed territory or climb over a barbed wire fence, reportsThe Local.

Local authorities say that of the 200 or so migrants who tried to swim from Morocco, two were pulled dead from the waters and another 104 intercepted. Police trying to protect the border against the onslaught themselves sustained injury after coming under fire from stones and sticks thrown by the migrants.

Red Cross volunteers in Ceuta said they were treating 185 migrants who did get into Spanish territory. A dozen of that number were hospitalised for more serious injuries including an open leg fracture, deep cuts, symptoms of drowning, and hypothermia.

Those well enough to avoid hospitalisation were equipped by the Red Cross with clothing and shoes, before being taken to a temporary migrant detention centre. This follows the normal practice of not sending back those migrants who reach Spanish territory, instead allowing them to submit asylum claims and sometimes flying them to the Spanish mainland.

Demonstrators ransacked a Muslim prayer hall and set fire to copies of the Koran on the French island of Corsica Friday, police said, in an attack condemned by the government.

The violence came on Christmas Day amid heightened security measures for the holiday, and nationwide fears after the November 13 attacks in Paris by jihadists that killed 130 people.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls wrote on Twitter that the break-in in the city of Ajaccio was “an unacceptable desecration”.

Tensions had mounted in Ajaccio Friday after two firefighters and a police officer were injured overnight in a low-income neighbourhood of the city when they were “ambushed” by “several hooded youths”, authorities said.

On Friday afternoon around 150 people had gathered in front of the prefecture in a show of support for the police and firefighters, officials said in a statement.

But some in that crowd broke away and headed for the low-income housing estate where the violence took place the night before.

They shouted slogans in Corsican meaning “Arabs get out!” or “This is our home!”, an AFP correspondent reported.

Nearby was the Muslim prayer room and a small group smashed the glass door and entered the place of worship, ransacking the room and partially burning books including copies of the Koran, said regional official Francois Lalanne.

“Fifty prayer books were thrown out on the street,” Lalanne said, adding that some of the pages were burnt.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Europe needs to regain control of its borders, Germany’s foreign minister was quoted on Saturday as saying, after reports that forged Syrian passports are in the hands of Islamic State militants.

More than a million refugees, many fleeing war and violence in the Middle East, have arrived in Germany this year. Since last month’s Paris attacks, concern has grown that Islamist militants may enter undetected among the influx.

On Tuesday, German media quoted Bavaria’s Interior Minister as saying that refugees with fake Syrian passports have disappeared in Germany and there are grounds for suspicion that they may have had contact with Islamic State militants.

Four Christians have been beaten up in Berlin, Germany’s capital city, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

German media reports that four men were leaving the Adagio venue in the bustling Potzdamer Platz area when they were challenged by a man who exclaimed: “I am a Muslim! What are you?” before setting upon the four 20-somethings. He was reportedly assisted by four, older accomplices.

Police are now investigating the incident as a politically motivated attack, and at least five people are thought to have been injured in the melee, including one passer by who tried to settle the dispute.

The injured apparently refused medical treatment, and police records indicated they were from Serbia and Montenegro, and are Orthodox Christians.

According to the Tagespiegel newspaper, the venue in the heart of Berlin was hosting a “Balkan Party” in the evening on Christmas Day.

The assailants fled the scene before police arrived, and there have been no reports yet as to their whereabouts.